Colors in the Great Gatsby

Color Lover: How Colors are Used to Examine Important Themes in the Novel Colors segregate themselves from each other. For example, the color white is defined as fair and clean, while the color black is defined as dark and fear. Thus, black will always be black and white will always be white. There are a plethora of references to colors in the novel The Great Gatsby written by Scott Fitzgerald. Colors are used everywhere in this novel to describe individuals and their appearance. If examined closely, it is clear that certain colors pertain to certain individuals. Scott Fitzgerald is implying that colors can represent a person and their intentions. In the novel, Scott Fitzgerald uses colors to explain important themes. Scott Fitzgerald explains the concept of status through the colors white, blue and gray. By definition, white represents cleanliness and purity. In the novel, all the wealthy citizens of East Egg dress and live in the color white. Tom and Daisy Buchanan keep up with this status quo. They both wear white tuxes and dresses and live in a house that is a “white Georgian Colonial mansion” (11). Tom also drives a blue coupe which was the ideal car for a wealthy person to drive in the 1920’s. They also host exclusive parties only for their wealthy friends who come dressed in fancy white suites and drive classy blue cars. Tom and Daisy represent East Eggs status and all its wealth. On the other hand, the poor are described with dull colors such as gray. The valley of ashes is a town between West Egg and New York City where “ashes grow” and the citizens “move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air” (27). Fitzgerald describes the citizens as a lower class who is alienated from the wealthy class. The valley of ashes is a town that was created by the garbage and wastes from East Egg and represents filth. George Wilson lives in the Valley of Ashes and is described as a “blond, spiritless man” (29). His garage business is very slow and is covered in...

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Authors often use color symbolism in their writing to show a deeper meaning. Often, these colors associate with a particular feeling of object. Fitzgerald is no different in his work, The GreatGatsby. It is discernible that Fitzgerald uses a multitude of color references in his writing. The ones most easily recognizable are the use of yellow, white and green. There are however, such colors as silver, blue and red that lack obvious recognition due to their vagueness in the text. Yellow is identifiable as money and white as purity, however, the full aspect of the meaning is lost.
White is the first color the Fitzgerald symbolizes through his writing. A strong contrast between light and dark shows whites in accordance with other colors (Schneider 1). The white represents the purity of Gatsby’s dream that mingles with darkness in the form of such people as Tom and Daisy. The Valley of the Ashes shows this contrast. In a world that is so grand, the American Dream is left to wallow in the true nature of humanity (Schneider 4). In the first chapter, where Daisy and Jordan first appear, “They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the...

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...The GreatGatsby, exposes the corruption and greed of the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald is able to captivate readers' attentions through his employment of color symbolism. Fitzgerald portrays important messages in the novel by his symbolic use of colors. Colors play an important role in Fitzgerald’s descriptions of the lives of Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway and many of the other characters in the novel. Fitzgerald uses the colors white, yellow, and green to express certain sentiments to the reader, commenting what is going on in the story. Fitzgerald uses the color white to symbolize purity and innocence, while yellow is used to symbolize moral decay, and death. Green is used to represent hope and dreams for the future. The reader is able to acknowledge these colors and understand the mood being expressed through their symbolism.
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